So about three months ago, my step-grandfather was at work and broke his back trying to move something. Only they (the workman’s comp doctors) insisted it was just a slipped disk and instead forced him to go through a month of physical therapy before he finally went to a real doctor and was told he had a broken back. At the same time, he was told he had terminal (stage 4 cancer) and was given 6 months to live. Then they gave him surgery for his back. Why give a man with stage 4 cancer back surgery? Seriously.

He died on Friday, which all told is for the best. He was in a lot of pain.

Now I am not a doctor, but I am certain that

1) Workman’s comp were completely out of line with their insistence that his back was not broken and therapy would fix it. Had they been doing their job, it would have been known that his back was broken and he would not have suffered for a month until he was so debilitated that he couldn’t get up from the chair in the living room even to use the bathroom. I have no say over what happens, but I feel they should be sued for emotional distress at the very least. There was no reason to put him through that misery. Like as not they would say the cancer was a pre-existing condition that caused his back to break, but regardless they had no right to put him through that kind of needless suffering.

2) The hospital did needless surgery on him knowing that with stage 4 cancer, a broken back was the least of his problems. They gave him 6 months, tops, so was the surgery necessary? I think not. I think they did it knowing he was going to die in a few months, so why not get more money out of a dying man? In fact, I feel that the surgery and physical therapy at Good Shepherd hastened his demise.

3) He insisted on going to Good Shepherd for his physical therapy after the surgery because he regularly donated to them. While he was there, he basically sat in a chair all day, ignored by the staff. His condition worsened, as we learned later because the cancer was eating away at his brain, but I’m sure the bed sores didn’t help matters. In fact, I’m sure that they only put more of a strain on his system as did the surgery itself.

4) Once he was returned to the hospital, the nurses took pictures of his sores, most likely to ensure that they would not be blamed for his condition. His health deteriorated even more until he finally came home. But earlier in the week, a nurse called everyone in the family and basically made it seem like he was dying in minutes, making everyone scramble to get there. In the end he was brought home to die in hospice, but the nurse who called was out of line in worrying everyone. He died Friday, so he wasn’t quite that close to death’s door.

Anyway, any regular readers of my webnovel… there’ll be no posts this week as I don’t feel much like writing, and the funeral’s in the middle of the week.